Front loading or top loading washing machine?

If @adder wants to avoid this problem he should use the app to configure the machine.

Don't touch the touch panel, it can't go bad. If it does go bad there is still an alternative way to control the machine.

I guess that would make the case for wifi enabled to a certain extent.
I rarely use the app, to turn on the machine. But I think most of the people with touch problems are those who keep the machines outside in balcony or inside the bathroom. In both cases humidty and water splash can be high. Mine is not kept near any moisture source.

Some of those pcb shown in those touch repair videos have corrosion damages.
 
Right. Ovens have different membrane keypads. These look like plastic stickers.

View attachment 140725

There's nothing behind this sticker. This sticker itself houses the buttons. It is glued to body of the oven. It's easy to replace but you need to get a spare.
I was thinking about this and as far as I can recollect all the microwaves I've seen over the last thirty years have had membrane keypads.
 
It means the minimum tub size to consider for a top loader is 60L if you expect to clean anything more than normal soil.
That might just be too big.

And I have no idea which machine will give you that. What kg ratings or dimensions. People rarely answer these volume questions when I ask.
Forget people, even brands too don't answer such questions properly.

But I think most of the people with touch problems are those who keep the machines outside in balcony or inside the bathroom. In both cases humidty and water splash can be high.
Yes. Most people keep machines in high humidity places because space is very premium in India. Manufacturer should consider this fact.

I was thinking about this and as far as I can recollect all the microwaves I've seen over the last thirty years have had membrane keypads.
Yeah. Most consumer grade ovens have membrane panels with few exceptions. You won't find membrane panel in professional grade ovens though.
 
I rarely use the app, to turn on the machine. But I think most of the people with touch problems are those who keep the machines outside in balcony or inside the bathroom. In both cases humidty and water splash can be high. Mine is not kept near any moisture source.

Some of those pcb shown in those touch repair videos have corrosion damages.
My washing machine was kept in a perfectly safe place(inside non-ac bedroom behind door) and yet it developed touch problem. There's no corrosion damage on any PCB. They all look new.

If @adder wants to avoid this problem he should use the app to configure the machine.

Don't touch the touch panel, it can't go bad. If it does go bad there is still an alternative way to control the machine.

I guess that would make the case for wifi enabled to a certain extent.
I don't know about that. I have a 1.5T LG AC which supports control over wifi.
1) The pairing of AC and phone itself was a pain in the rear end. Took a lot of time and effort as app kept crashing.
2) There's a big delay between the command given on phone and AC responding to that. I'm talking between 2-3 secs which is annoying.

Even though we're talking about washing machine here, but I would guess the same technology is used?
 
I don't know about that. I have a 1.5T LG AC which supports control over wifi.
1) The pairing of AC and phone itself was a pain in the rear end. Took a lot of time and effort as app kept crashing.
2) There's a big delay between the command given on phone and AC responding to that. I'm talking between 2-3 secs which is annoying.

Even though we're talking about washing machine here, but I would guess the same technology is used?
It would be the ThinkQ app. I used it some time back to get diagnostics from my non wifi washing machine. Worked to get the report.

The drawback to the wifi method is it assumes you will be the sole operator. If other members of the household also use the machine then the advantage will be negated.

I think those touchpads get spoilt through wear and tear. Humdity might accelerate that process but they are not that durable, to begin with.

A low-cost option for buttons is all they are.

I don't know what you can do because the higher-end Samsungs come with touchpads these days. Anything with 1,400 rpm unless it is a years old model.
 
Received my samsung front loader. Drum volume is ~70L (26r, 33h). It's made in India. I was under the impression that these are made in Vietnam.
 
Received my samsung front loader. Drum volume is ~70L (26r, 33h).
This is bigger than mine then which is ~54L (24r, 30h)

That 3cm more depth is what I used to see with 8kg machines 5 years ago. The ones with a depth of 60 cm.

But yours is only 55cm, so they have increased the drum diameter by 2cm

Good stuff.
It's made in India. I was under the impression that these are made in Vietnam.
My LG was the last one to be made in China. Only place it says that is on the box.

You will need to run a tub clean first to clean out the test run residue from the factory.

When you do your first wash with dirty clothes. After the wash is over and you remove the clothes.

Smell the inside of the machine. Remember what that smells like.

That is how your machine should smell whether it is 1, 5 years or older ;)

And it will if you do those tub cleans with Vanish as recommended three months hence and keep at it.

The clock for maintenance begins from the first wash as that is when dirt starts accumulating.

To measure power consumption get the MECo meter. Review

It can measure RMS, unlike cheaper wifi-enabled 'smart' switches. Without RMS your cumulative figure over a period will be off.

A cottons 40-degree wash will run you 0.25 units. A 60-degree wash is closer to 0.5 units. A tub clean ~0.8 units.

Your top loader likely did a wash at just under 0.1 unit without heating.

If you want to match it then get a solar water heater and thermostatic valve like @adder has.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: lockhrt999
Had a look up my new front loader. This Samsung machine doesn't have a sealed drum. :)

IMG_20220728_133403.jpg


Those steel nuts are removable. That should open up the tub. I think bearings and spyder are individually replaceable too. Following youtube video shows another samsung machine having removable spyder and bearings. It has similar structure like mine although mine is bigger. But tub look the same.


Some observations,
  • It's not a direct drive like LG. As you can see, the motor is mounted beneath the tub and there's a belt drive. Still, no clutch and no gears means the motor can be called inverter. It's a brushless DC motor and RPM is controlled by PWM just like CPU cooler fan.
  • We had 2 cycles so far and it has given much better wash than my own hand wash. I'm not bad at hand washing. I have been washing my clothes using my own hands from many years. The machine has heating and it has a lot of time. It wins.
  • Front loaders do bloody work. For a hand-washer and top loader guy, I'm having hard time to understand how could it clean this effectively using so little water. Had I not heard that front loaders use less water, I would have assumed my machine is broken and returned it.
  • Soaking time varies depending upon some other factors but it's around 30-40 minutes. The actual soaking happens in the middle of the wash. I was wrongly presuming that soaking would take place before prewash.
  • One of my cycle was all frills. 60 degrees water, Full 60gm detergent dose, prewash and soaking. It gave never-seen-before clean wash but my brand new jeans pissed a lot blue on other clothes. I was slightly expecting that. But now I understand that I don't need to use 60 degrees of water and certainly not the 60gm of detergent. lol. Anyway, no harm is done as other clothes weren't important.
  • The machine hardly uses any electricity unless I'm using the heater. With heater the power consumption can stay up to 2k watts for some time. But other than that, the washing hardly needs 40w and even top speed spinning won't need beyond 250w. All frills cycle consumed about 0.7 units. Normal non-heated wash shouldn't consume more than 0.1 units.
  • The buttons aren't good. These aren't touch screen like nor they are any tactile. I don't know what they are but they need very-very precise press. It doesn't register light touches or heavy presses. It's very precise on what it wants. More than 50% touches are being missed. It's going to take some used to. LG touch panel must be a lot better at usability.
 
@blr_p you had earlier mentioned in another thread Vanish powder can be used for descaling the WM.
Vanish is for cleaning. Descaling is removing hard water deposits. Descaling is not cleaning. You can use citric acid or the regular descalers which use sulphamic acid.
Can we use Vanish liquid for the same?
No, use powder because the cleaning ingredient we need for the job is percarbonate which if you look up the ingredients you can see only the powder has. They call it sodium carbonate peroxide.

The liquid does not contain percarbonate and will be useless for the purpose of washing machine cleaning.

Ideally, I recommend the Labogens Percarbonate which is pure. Vanish uses less than 50% of percarbonate maybe closer to 25%

The only reason to mention Vanish is it's easier to find. If you use Vanish powder then add some fabric or towels otherwise it will foam up like crazy.

I use about 3 clean mops and a couple of old face towels. 0.5kg is enough. Use clean fabric not dirty as that way more of the product will be used to clean the machine instead of the cloth.
Had a look up my new front loader. This Samsung machine doesn't have a sealed drum. :)

View attachment 141069

Those steel nuts are removable. That should open up the tub. I think bearings and spyder are individually replaceable too.
The thing with these videos is we don't know when the model they repair came out. Older ones were not sealed. So this is great news that until now your model is still not sealed as confirmed by you.
Following youtube video shows another samsung machine having removable spyder and bearings. It has similar structure like mine although mine is bigger. But tub look the same.

Did you see the spider he pulled out? It's made of thin gauge steel and has completely disintegrated That's the usual slam against Samsung.

The LG ones tend to be a bit thicker. A Samsung with 1400 rpm will also have thicker drum support than ones with slower spin speeds but they come with touch panels which you don't want.
Some observations,
  • It's not a direct drive like LG. As you can see, the motor is mounted beneath the tub and there's a belt drive. Still, no clutch and no gears means the motor can be called inverter. It's a brushless DC motor and RPM is controlled by PWM just like CPU cooler fan.
  • We had 2 cycles so far and it has given much better wash than my own hand wash. I'm not bad at hand washing. I have been washing my clothes using my own hands from many years. The machine has heating and it has a lot of time. It wins.
  • Front loaders do bloody work. For a hand-washer and top loader guy, I'm having hard time to understand how could it clean this effectively using so little water. Had I not heard that front loaders use less water, I would have assumed my machine is broken and returned it.
A friend told me in the early 90s some jobs are better handled by machines :happy:

@tech.addict has this classic line that he did not know what clean meant until he got a front loader.
  • Soaking time varies depending upon some other factors but it's around 30-40 minutes. The actual soaking happens in the middle of the wash. I was wrongly presuming that soaking would take place before prewash.
Interesting, so it does a prewash and then soaks followed by the main wash? This should be effective as the dirt will have loosened up.
  • One of my cycle was all frills. 60 degrees water, Full 60gm detergent dose, prewash and soaking. It gave never-seen-before clean wash but my brand new jeans pissed a lot blue on other clothes. I was slightly expecting that. But now I understand that I don't need to use 60 degrees of water and certainly not the 60gm of detergent. lol. Anyway, no harm is done as other clothes weren't important.
Some time back I read someone say if you run the machine with nothing and notice the water gets foamy it means you're using too much detergent meaning there is detergent buildup in the machine. This you want to remove with citric acid as it coats the drum support and can weaken it with time. Maybe dissolve is a better word as you could see in the repair video. Citric acid is quite slow at dissolving detergent. Sometimes I need to run at least 4-5 tub cleans for as many days to see a difference in foam. Not found anything better than citric acid for the job to date.

The standard dose is a scoop which is 60gms. I use 20-30gm with normally soiled clothes for a full load as my water is soft. If water is harder or clothes heavily soiled then use more. I use a 10gm scoop as it's hard to eyeball quantity with those scoops. as far as liquid detergents go, there is one exception. Micro fibre towels. Only when I do a load of them do I use liquid surf. Around 15ml measured in a cough syrup cap. Apparently, builders in powder detergents are not good for micro fibre anything.

For reference, lightly soiled means it was in the cupboard for 6 months. If it touched your skin even briefly then it's normally soiled. 15 min quick wash is for lightly soiled and never for normally soiled. I usually wash new items in the quick wash with a little white cloth to test if its colour fast.

Since you use jeans and know a thing about them I will still mention that you zip them and wash them inside out. The rivets on the jeans should not be clanging around the drum as it can scratch or cause damage to the paddles and then you have something sharp with which to tear clothes in subsequent washes.

  • The machine hardly uses any electricity unless I'm using the heater. With heater the power consumption can stay up to 2k watts for some time. But other than that, the washing hardly needs 40w and even top speed spinning won't need beyond 250w. All frills cycle consumed about 0.7 units. Normal non-heated wash shouldn't consume more than 0.1 units.
The heater turns on for about 5 minutes for a 40-degree wash. Otherwise, in agreement with your consumption figures for the kind of wash selected.
  • The buttons aren't good. These aren't touch screen like nor they are any tactile. I don't know what they are but they need very-very precise press. It doesn't register light touches or heavy presses. It's very precise on what it wants. More than 50% touches are being missed. It's going to take some used to. LG touch panel must be a lot better at usability.
No complaints with mine. Usually gets it the first time. But it's a button press. No touch on mine.
 
Last edited:
The thing with these videos is we don't know when the model they repair came out. Older ones were not sealed. So this is great news that until now your model is still not sealed as confirmed by you.
And my machine has manufacturing date of this month itself. I think if anyone is interested in any washing machine should head to a showroom and check the machine in person. Tilting it little to look at the tub shouldn't be hard.

Did you see the spider he pulled out? It's made of thin gauge steel and has completely disintegrated That's the usual slam against Samsung.
It's as if that spider was meant to fail. Why not make it using the same material like drum?

Interesting, so it does a prewash and then soaks followed by the main wash? This should be effective as the dirt will have loosened up.
Prewash -> 20% wash -> Soak -> 80% wash -> rinse etc.

Some time back I read someone say if you run the machine with nothing and notice the water gets foamy it means you're using too much detergent meaning there is detergent buildup in the machine.
Does the front loading washing power not create any lather? Because I didn't see any.

Since you use jeans and know a thing about them I will still mention that you zip them and wash them inside out. The rivets on the jeans should not be clanging around the drum as it can scratch or cause damage to the paddles and then you have something sharp with which to tear clothes in subsequent washes.
It was mentioned in manual too and I did the same.

No complaints with mine. Usually gets it the first time. But it's a button press. No touch on mine.
Samsung has studied all types of buttons and combined their drawbacks into one. I don't think it'll be high humidity proof.

The installation was very bad. It was provided by a third party called Jeevas. I almost never take installation and demo. But I had a few question about the maintenance so I let the guy come anyway. He gave all the wrong info. Tried to upsell some drum descaler with samsung name written on it ( I know it's fake). Samsung itself mentions drum cleaning doesn't need any powder. He then ran away without giving a demo. I undid most of his work and redid it according to the manual.
 
And my machine has manufacturing date of this month itself. I think if anyone is interested in any washing machine should head to a showroom and check the machine in person. Tilting it little to look at the tub shouldn't be hard.
A good idea if it does not have a rat screen. Bosch & Siemens are confirmed sealed tubs which can be seen on their spare parts site.
It's as if that spider was meant to fail. Why not make it using the same material like drum?
Not strong enough so they use an alloy. The gauge of that metal seems to decrease as the years go on. Older ones were much thicker.
Prewash -> 20% wash -> Soak -> 80% wash -> rinse etc.
Let us know how well it works. AFAIK LG's don't have this feature. But now we know the formula it can be simulated by pulling the power.

Notice they start the soak after the prewash completes and the main wash starts. The reason is there is no heating in the prewash and twenty minutes after the main wash begins the water is at the right temperature regardless of how hot you set it.

Does the front loading washing power not create any lather? Because I didn't see any.
A foam by agitation is normal, which dissipates quickly. I'm talking about a foam that lingers a little longer. In a year's time, you'll know what I mean. It's like you put a little soap in the bucket and move your hand around and it froths. A foam like that lingers.
Samsung has studied all types of buttons and combined their drawbacks into one. I don't think it'll be high humidity proof.
The one thing you were trying to avoid :(
The installation was very bad. It was provided by a third party called Jeevas. I almost never take installation and demo. But I had a few question about the maintenance so I let the guy come anyway. He gave all the wrong info. Tried to upsell some drum descaler with samsung name written on it ( I know it's fake). Samsung itself mentions drum cleaning doesn't need any powder. He then ran away without giving a demo. I undid most of his work and redid it according to the manual.
Those guys are there to sell you something. Either some contract or stuff that isn't required. Free installation means just that. The bare minimum necessary and that too not done well either. The guy who installed mine tried to sell me a water softener. Something you screw onto the inlet. Declined. The guy recommended Surf and I pointed out that LG recommends Ariel which he termed an 'Israeli' product. That one really cracked me up. I tried to point out to him that P&G was based in Cincinnati.

The only kind of softener that works is an ion exchange softener that you recharge with salt. Something else that could be useful is a sediment filter. As the inlet tends to get clogged with mud from the overhead tank otherwise. I periodically have to remove trees growing out of mine. A slowly clogging inlet, the filter mesh gets blocked then reduces water flow into the machine and causes detergent residue in the drawer. With proper water pressure and no constrictions, the detergent should dissolve cleanly with no residue remaining.

Descaler is necessary if water is hard or close to it. Surprised the descaler was fake though. These guys have access to the service centre. I'd be wary of anything on amazon that has the company logo. I've not found a simple way to test sulphamic acid so its any one's guess what goes into those fake descalers.

LG says not to put any clothes with a tub clean either. You won't get the best tub clean without some fabric and you do need a cleaner of some sort. The machine does not clean itself.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: lockhrt999
The guy recommended Surf and I pointed out that LG recommends Ariel which he termed an 'Israeli' product. That one really cracked me up. I tried to point out to him that P&G was based in Cincinnati.
:p These guys go to any length to sell their rubbish. And these guys are in good position to sell anything at upmarket rates. Customer thinks Samsung/LG themselves wants the customer to buy this rubbish. Reminds me of how teflon coating is sold to new vehicle.

I periodically have to remove trees growing out of mine.
Does that look like green moss or algae? You may need to clean the overhead tank.

Descaler is necessary if water is hard or close to it. Surprised the descaler was fake though.
By fake I meant it wasn't from Samsung originally. It's some third party descaler with samsung name printed on it. It could still be effective. Machine notifies to clean the drum after 40 washes. I'm going to use your guide then.
 
Does that look like green moss or algae? You may need to clean the overhead tank.
Roots growing in the tank that were not properly removed earlier. It amazes me such a thing is even possible but that is peepal for you. The slab covering the tank has some cement in between. I don't know how a peepal seed or more got into the tank. But the tree branches grow outside and the roots go towards the water inside the tank. Or its the other way around, the roots grew in the tank, made their way up the tank wall and moved to an area with light and out of the tank.

It took some chipping away at that cement to pull out a few feet of roots wedged in between. The roots weighed a few kilos. The slab must weigh almost 100kg.
By fake I meant it wasn't from Samsung originally. It's some third party descaler with samsung name printed on it. It could still be effective.
It was obvious heh. How to test how effective. If you know what the chemical is then it's clear. But this isn't stuff you put on your tongue.

The problem which I find quite maddening is there is no legal requirement in this country to disclose ingredients unless its a medicine :banghead:
Machine notifies to clean the drum after 40 washes. I'm going to use your guide then.
Just like Whirlpool because they wanted you to use their Affresh product. Go read the thread it will make everything clear.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: lockhrt999
I don't know how a peepal seed or more got into the tank.
Pigeons. Birds poop seeds in gaps and crevices.

But the tree branches grow outside and the roots go towards the water inside the tank. Or its the other way around, the roots grew in the tank, made their way up the tank wall and moved to an area with light and out of the tank.
Trees can't even start grow in the dark. So that can't happen. If your ground tank is leaking even a few drops, any outside tree is going to notice and it's going to penetrate the tank with roots. I've seen it many times. The tank is going to leak badly. Only solution is to waterproof the tank with good quality material. Roots can penetrate through anything, even a good thick concrete block if they smell water.

It was obvious heh. How to test how effective. If you know what the chemical is then it's clear. But this isn't stuff you put on your tongue.
Can't descale my colons. I didn't get the pack.
 
Prewash -> 20% wash -> Soak -> 80% wash -> rinse etc.
Is any more water added during the soak stage?

Typically a rinse cycle will have three times more water than a wash cycle. I'd have thought a soak would have as much water as a rinse cycle.

I don't know if more water means better soaking. More water also means diluting but then that's how you soak things isn't it.
 
Is any more water added during the soak stage?

Typically a rinse cycle will have three times more water than a wash cycle. I'd have thought a soak would have as much water as a rinse cycle.

I don't know if more water means better soaking. More water also means diluting but then that's how you soak things isn't it.
Water isn't added during the soaking. One might say the water is too little for soaking but to solve that, it flips the clothes every few minutes during soaking.